Gabriel - Die Rache ist mein

Aussie self-consciousness, whether it figures in support of this film or against it, ain't relevant. Gabriel is a great existential-goth-action piece about archangels and their nemeses warring in human form and grappling with their newfound human frailties. For budgetary reasons the film favours the goth and the existential elements over the action one, and it's definitely all the better for it, because what it ultimately develops which is sorely lacking from a lot of films whose stylings it's adopted (the Underworlds, the Crows, etc.) is a ton of genuine involvement. The unknown actors give universally fine performances, and in the case of bad guy Sammael (Dwaine Stevenson) a deeply charismatic and disturbing one.

I was a bit worried by the wordlessness and flat grey look of the earliest scenes, but as soon as we hit the first dialogue two-hander, I got pulled into the characters' situation. Also, the film never looks as grey again as it does right at the start, even if the digital video footage doesn't give much depth of field in this dark world.

The fights are spaced out, but they're very cool. The choreography is of The Matrix almost ESP-martial arts kind, yet filmed in nice clear wide shots with minimal editing (or editing that's well-disguised by passing obstacles) so you can see what's going on. Sometimes it's guns, sometimes hand-to-hand, sometimes both, with bullet time, slow-mo, folks zipping around bullets, all the nifty stuff that's been developed in this genre. There's also an exciting shootout in strobing darkness that reminded me of Equilibrium's gun cabal scenes.

The film Gabriel reminds me of most strongly, however, isn't something super recent. It's Blade Runner. In that film, replicant robots unsure of their identity and nascent emotions variously went into hiding, went insane or fought for their survival in a world that wasn't really theirs when push came to shove. Replace 'robots' with 'angels' and you've got the basic premise of Gabriel. The angels are sent to purgatory to get in amongst the humans and steer them in the right direction, or in the case of bad guys The Fallen, keep them corrupt. But to adopt the mortal form is to become vulnerable to human weakness, and that's what Gabriel has to struggle with as he tries to rally his angel pals who've failed before him for one last battle.

Freakin' good film!

I enjoyed this movie. If you have any interest in film making, I would rate it higher than 7 out of 10. It's worth while seeing what can be made for $150,000 Aussie dollars.

The movie may have some flaws, and I think the biggest one was budget. I would have loved to see this movie remade with a better budget. My biggest problem though was the quality of the film on the big screen. Considering it was filmed with a JVC HD101 camera, it's understandable that the film's not going to be as crisp as what people are used to. I hope someone gives the people who made this a chance at another film with a decent budget. At the very least give them a new camera to shoot with.

Acting was not one of the flaws in this film. I have seen many a bad movie with dodgy acting and this was no where near as bad as I was led to believe from people's comments.

Plot wise, it's an interesting tale. Understanding the concept of Purgatory goes along to help people get a grasp of what's going on. I can't believe how people claim this movie has no plot. I found this movie to be more a thinker with some action rather than a straight action film. Their is action in this film, but it is depicted a lot more realistically than most people probably would have liked.

At the end of the day, this is not the horrible movie that the first reviewer is making it out to be. It has plot, solid acting and the sound was fine. The quality of the picture though is probably the hardest thing to forgive. I think it's sad that a lot of people will read the first person's review and not see this film based on someones ability to write 10 lines of text. 10 lines being the magic minimum before they allow people to submit a review.

If you really think this film was awful go and watch "Ultraviolet" and you will truly understand what kind of films deserve to be given 1/10.

First of, don't expect a blockbuster like UNDERWORLD. This movie was shot with a budget of Au$ 200,000, that's Australian, by a guy who never wrote or made a movie before. Consider all these when you watch the movie and you might forgive its short comings.

Sure a lot of idiots complain that there are better movies with lower budget, yes, well ask how many of them are effects driven action movies with such a large scope like GABRIEL. Clerks !?... um no.

Frankly, Gabriel is a the indie action film. These being said, the movie moves at a pretty typical style and pace until the ending when it really pays off. The fights are quite cleverly choreographed and the editing is pretty tight. Its the dialogs that needed improvement and the story needed to explain itself a more. Half the time you'll be left wondering the rules of the world.

In the end, watch it for yourself and discover. As an independent effects driven action film with a style of SIN CITY, it is definitely the 1st.

It's hard to make up my mind about this film. I didn't particularly like the writing or most of the acting, but I really like the look of the film (reminiscent of Sin City in a lot of ways) and some of the camera work was great. It's not a film I really enjoyed to watch, though. I can't put my finger on it, something just didn't make me want to keep watching, so I spent half the film thinking "Should I turn it off now? Now?" And when it hit the love scene I just felt sick. "They *didn't* do that, did they? Oh God, they did." However in spite of myself, I watched to the end. There were some good performances, some really bad ones, and more than a few mediocre. I really think Noble belongs in Home and Away. She had a real "Tammin" vibe and (at the risk of sounding really harsh), it just irritated me every time I saw her. I feel like if this film had gotten better funding and some better actors, it would have been amazing. As it stands, I think the art department and overall look of the film saved it from being plain bad. I'm sorry because I can tell what the film *could* have been, but it missed the mark. Maybe I can hope the sequel is better?

I was quite afraid of quality of the movie before watching it. But, it is definitely not another B class horror/Gothic/cheesy movie.It has a decent story, interesting characters, just enough tweaks to keep everything in place. I should also add the action scenes are quite well done; couple of them are quite remarkable, and no overkill.

You'll find some resemblances with Dark City, Donnie Darko and Blade Runner.

Yes, the scenario is about the history old war between pure good and total bad. But, that war would never loose its popularity and this movie is a good addition to the list.